Presentation by Dr Craig Hammond (University Centre Blackburn College) on Georg Simmel

1. From Modernity to Postmodernity:
Contemporary Social Theory
Week 3: Georg Simmel
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2. Georg Simmel
 1858-1918
 Born in Berlin, Germany
 His family was
business-oriented,
prosperous, and
Jewish
 His father converted to
Christianity--died in
Simmel’s youth
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3. Georg Simmel
Simmel’s approach to sociology rejects the organicist
theories of Comte and Spencer
As well as the historical description of unique events (such
as the Marxist Historical Materialism)
Instead he suggests that society consists of a web of
patterned interactions, and that it is the task of
sociology to study the forms of these interactions as
they occur and reoccur in diverse historical periods and
cultural settings.
(Coser 1971:177)
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4. Georg Simmel
As with Durkheim and Weber, Simmel resisted
reducing social behavior to individual personality.
Nor, for Simmel, could social relationships be fully
explained by larger collective patterns such as “the
economy.”
Rather, the results of everyday interaction creates a
level of reality in its own right--an “interaction
order” that is never totally fixed and is therefore
always problematic and capable of change.
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5. Georg Simmel
How is society possible?
Simmel proposed that sociologists focus on
people in relationships.
Society, for Simmel, was the patterned
interactions among members of a
group,
the sum of responses to ordinary life
events.
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6. Georg Simmel
Simmel began with the elements of everyday life:
• playing games,
• keeping secrets,
• being a stranger,
• forming friendships
• Opening a door
• Picking up a jug
• And arrived at insights into the quality of relationships.
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7. Georg Simmel
Society is merely the name for a number
of individuals connected by interactions.
The Dyad
The Triad
And the Complexity of the City (Metropolis)
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8. Georg Simmel:
The Significance of Numbers for Social Life
Dyad versus Triad
A dyadic relationship differs from all other types
of groups: the two participants are confronted
by only one other and not by a collectivity.
Because this type of group depends only on two
participants, the withdrawal of one would
destroy the whole: “A dyad depends on each of
its two elements alone … for its life it needs
both, but for its death, only one.”
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9. Georg Simmel:
The Significance of Numbers for Social Life
When a dyad is transformed into a triad, the
apparently insignificant fact that one member
has been added actually brings about a major
qualitative change.
In the triad, all associations involve more than
two persons, the individual participant is
confronted with the possibility of being outvoted
by a majority.
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10. Georg Simmel:
The Significance of Numbers for Social Life
When a third member enters a dyadic
group, various processes become possible
where previously they could not take
place. A third member may:
Mediate
Rejoice
Divide and Rule
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11. Georg Simmel:
The Dialectical Method
To Simmel, sociation always involves
harmony and conflict, attraction and
repulsion, love and hatred. He saw human
relations as characterized by ambivalence;
precisely those who are connected in
intimate relations are likely to harbor for
one another not only positive but also
negative sentiments.
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12. Georg Simmel:
Formal Sociology (Social Forms)
Social Processes
Conflict and Cooperation
Subordination and Superordination
Centralization and Decentralization
Bridge & Door
The Handle
The Fragmentary Character of Everyday Life
Fashion (and the Maverick)
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13. Georg Simmel: The Stranger as a
Social Type (Form)
The Stranger
The stranger” in Simmel’s terminology, is not just a wanderer “who
comes today and goes tomorrow,” having no specific structural
position. On the contrary, he is a “person who comes today and
stays tomorrow…He is fixed within a particular spatial group…but
his position…is determined…by the fact that he does not belong to
it from the beginning,” and that he may leave again.
The stranger is “an element of the group itself” while not being fully
part of it. He therefore is assigned a role that no other members of
the group can play. By virtue of his partial involvement in group
affairs he can attain an objectivity that other members cannot
reach… being distant and near at the same time, (Coser 1971:182)
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14. A Simmelean Stranger?
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15. Georg Simmel:
Social Types
The Stranger
What are the limitations of Simmel’s approach to
social theory
Explanations of society
Would you say that he is a modernity or a postmodernist (and
why?)
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